New York State Civil Commitment Program

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The New York State Civil Commitment Program was the largest and most expensive drug treatment program of its kind during the 1960s and 1970s. Modeled after the CALIFORNIA CIVIL Addict Program (CAP), it was established in the early 1960s in response to the dramatic rise of New York's heroin-addict population. The first reaction to the problem was expressed in the Metcalf-Volker Narcotic Addict Commitment Act of 1962, which sent arrested addicts to state mental-hygiene facilities for treatment. The total failure of this program prompted New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller to substantially modify and expand the program in 1966 by creating a Narcotic Addiction Control Commission (NACC). NACC was established to administer the New York State Civil Commitment Program, which involved a major statewide network of residential treatment centers.

Six different types of centers handled the following phases of treatment: examination and detention; detoxification, orientation, and screening; residential treatment and rehabilitation; temporary return; indefinite return; and halfway houses. Those who were eligible for treatment at a center included addicted individuals who had been arrested or convicted for a felony or misdemeanor, who had been involuntarily committed by their family or a friend, or who had volunteered to be treated. The treatment process consisted of a period of commitment within the institution, followed by community aftercare. Clients were under the control of the agency for an average of twenty-five months, of which ten months was spent in residence at the institution (Winick, 1988).

The program reached its peak in 1970 when twenty-four state facilities with 4,100 beds and a staff of over 5,000 provided services to 6,600 addicts. Followupstudies of the program at this time were few, but they tended to indicate some positive outcomes (Winick, 1988). After 1970, the program began to lose public support and became a regular political target because of charges of cost overruns, allegations of staff brutality, and questionable administrative procedures (Winick, 1988). There was also a general change in philosophy that drew politicians away from supporting state-run institutions and toward recommending community-based treatment. In addition, political leaders began to move away from rehabilitation and toward harsh criminal sanctions for persons possessing or selling narcotics.

Governor Rockefeller announced in 1971 that he had lost confidence in the New York program and initiated a two-thirds cutback in budget and clients. The number of occupied beds steadily diminished because of these cuts and by 1979 the last two centers shut down (Winick, 1988). From 1966 to 1979, the program had cost approximately $1 billion. By the time the program was closed, each resident was costing an average of $29,000 per year, as compared with $8,500 for a resident in a THERAPEUTIC COMMUNITY and $14,500 for a prison inmate (Winick, 1988). In 1980, the state legislature repealed the civil commitment law.

Poor planning played a major part in the failure of the program (Winick, 1988). Due to political pressure, the first eight facilities opened in less than a year. Staffing was an immediate problem. The directors of the treatment facilities had inadequate administrative or clinical experience, since they were mostly political and civil service appointees (Inciardi, 1988). Facilities also were ill chosen and they too contributed to staffing deficiencies. NACC purchased underused prisons from the New York Department of Corrections and used them as treatment facilities. Many of the former prison guards were maintained as rehabilitation officers who performed both a counseling and custodial function. These officers were inadequately trained for their new positions, and they often disciplined program participants too harshly (Inciardi, 1988). The result was an environment that did not offer therapeutic benefits and was not conducive to behavioral change.

The screening of candidates for the program, moreover, was not consistent, and the criteria for completion of the program were ambiguous. The reentry and aftercare programs were equally illequipped to handle the task at hand. The aftercare "officers" had no authority to arrest a client for violation of aftercare conditions, and their caseloads were too large to allow close supervision. As a consequence, a great number of parolees fled or stopped reporting (Winick, 1988).

Apart from programmatic failings, the civil commitment program began just as political leaders started to move away from rehabilitative models. Governor Rockefeller provides a telling example. By the early 1970s, when heroin addiction showed no signs of abating, Rockefeller decided that the criminal justice system should be directed more forcefully at drug users. In 1973, a group of statutes, popularly known as the Rockefeller laws, went into effect. These laws imposed mandatory prison sentences on those that possessed or sold drugs. These sentences, even for first-time offenders, were very long. Repeat offenders could receive life imprisonment. With the Civil Commitment Program unable to produce reliable and cost-effective results, the impulse to incarcerate drug users proved almost irresistible.

California Civil Commitment Program; Civil Commitment; Coerced Treatment for Substance Offenders; Narcotic Addict Rehabilitation Act; Prisons and Jails; Rockefeller Drug Laws)

INCIARDI, J. A. (1988). Compulsory treatment in New York: A brief narrative history of misjudgment, mismanagement and misrepresentation. Journal of Drug Issues, 18(4), 547-560.

LEUKEFELD, C.G., & TIMS, F. M. (1988). Compulsorytreatment: A review of findings. In: Compulsory treatment of drug abuse: Research and clinical practiceNIDA Research Monograph 86. Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

TSIMBINOS, Spiros A. (1999). Is it time to change the Rockefeller drug laws? St. John's Journal of Legal Commentary 13,613.

WINICK, C. (1988). Some policy implications of the New York State Civil Commitment Program. Journal of Drug Issues, 18(4), 561-574.

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